Thursday, August 16, 2018

A Socialist Sympathizer Realizes What Donald Trump Has Done for the Socialist Movement

The election of Trump—and the populist upsurge he helped encourage—has confirmed that politics is no longer the art of the possible, but the improbable. If Trump can win the highest office in the land, then why can’t the rest of us run for something, too? Why shouldn’t a 33-year old Egyptian-American named Abdul run for Michigan governor? Why shouldn’t a 28-year old, who was only a bartender a year ago, defeat a Democratic establishment stalwart? And why shouldn’t that person say, without shame or apology, that she’s a socialist?Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s primary-election victory, coming on the heels of Bernie Sanders’s insurgent presidential campaign, has thrust “socialism” into the center of the American political conversation. Ideas once dismissed as radical are now gaining a hearing. Fights are raging within the Democratic Party, and on the political left. And that reinvigorated debate—and the other political conflicts Trump has inflamed—may be one of Trump’s more unlikely and ultimately positive contributions to American democracy.

No surprise to me. I noted this before, but it is important to repeat, a week after Trump was elected, I wrote:

Donald Trump is the Best Thing That Ever Happened to the U.S. Socialist Movement

In time, libertarian support for Donald Trump will be viewed as a strategic error.

Trump should be intellectually attacked by libertarians every chance they get. The youth need to become aware that there is an alternative philosophy to Trump that rejects central planning and socialism.

The next big thing mainstream media is going to latch on to is "the socialist women of Congress" immediately following the mid-term elections. Expect Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Ilhan Omar to be featured everywhere---and others.